• Buddies,  party party

    Narnia Party!

    Lucy

    Wow. It’s been almost a week already since I last wrote. I forgot how much you guys love neurosis. I’ve got plenty more where that came from but it might harm others so I’m just gonna stay mum. But thank you for all your kind comments. I hope it didn’t sound like I was fishing for compliments because I wasn’t. I really do think I’m a nut. It’s comforting to know the internet is full of nuts like me.

    So anyway! We went to a Narnia party last week. It was so fun. I was waiting for my friend Carrien to write about it because she would have all the details about the scrolls and how we acted out the story by traipsing all over her mother-in-law’s beautiful ranch but she hasn’t had time to write either (she does have four kids and another on the way afterall…) so I’m just going to share my photos and maybe a link to her blog later when she does get around to writing that post. It really was a wonderful party. Make sure you hunt her down.

    Off to a Narnia party!

    Bug and I did a little research online before we got into costume for the party. Bug is Susan. I don’t know who I am. Some kind of village person or something. I just wore every gypsy item I had in my closet, which is quite a lot it turns out.

    under cover

    When we arrived we had to duck down and enter through a wardrobe. It was actually a dresser with the drawers taken out and the back taken off and a rod installed into it with fur coats and blankets hanging over it. It was very clever. Of course I didn’t take a photo of it, I took a photo of the cake that I saw on the other side of the wardrobe. Because cakes demand photos apparently. Especially cakes baked by Carrien. She’s an amazing baker.

    bouncy Susan

    Then there was some jumping on the trampoline while we waited for the other guests to arrive because Narnia is full of jumping.

    Untitled

    The White Witch

    And THEN! The White Witch stole away the littlest children. She had candy and crayons and crowns. Bug wasn’t one of the littles but she thought coloring and sucking on lollipops was much more fun than making bows and arrows so she snuck away with the White Witch too.

    Bug got lured away by the White Witch who had gummies, lollipops, crayons and crowns. I think the crayons were what got her.

    The White Witch was very captivating. I think it was her dress…

    the art of archery

    The rest of us made bows out of pvc pipe and arrows out balsa wood sticks. The photo above is confusing because it is out of order. That was taken after the party when Bug suddenly discovered that she had missed out and didn’t have a bow. So we rustled up one for her. Spoiled little kid.

    Bow materials.

    The string was neon from Home Depot. Isn’t it pretty? I think I need to get myself some of that because it would be smashing for some sort of yarn-bomb craft project.

    ...

    There was a lot of traipsing around reading scrolls and acting out the story. I haven’t read the book since I was ten or so I was a little rusty on the order of events.

    down with the White Witch!

    They are attacking the White Witch here and she very dramatically crumbled into a little pile on the ground into her elegant ($10 thrift store) dress all crinkled up around her. The kids ate it up.

    golden leaves

    I forget who this character was but he was crucial to the story too…

    Beaver

    And this guy too.

    comfortable hollow

    sir dog

    I don’t think this guy was in the story but he was cute.

    scurrying with trays

    And there was food! Of course there was food.

    bring the food!

    With fair maidens rushing it out dramatically like we were in a real castle.

    royal table

    The royal spread.

    Beaver Hollow

    Eating in Beaver Hollow.

    Carrien makes the best cakes

    Then it was cake time!

    the birthday girls

    And singing for the birthday girls.

    Little helps block the breeze

    cutting the cake

    We were all very excited about the cake.

    yummy!

    Because it was DELICIOUS like all Carrien’s cakes are.

    Queen Little

    Then we just hung out and mingled with the other Narnians. That’s Princess Lucy above.

    he knows he's cute

    Sir Cutesalot.

    dad-hug

    The boy and his dad fresh back from Thailand.

    three's cozy

    The White Witch changed into The Good Aunt with a very warm snugly blanket for any who wanted to squeeze under.

    Elli

    Little E was there.

    B & E

    Bethany was there. You guys know her. I can’t believe I didn’t get a photo of Annalie. She was off having lots of fun I’m sure and somehow escaped my photo radar.

    winter

    Then we closed that party down and went over the Blues’ for pizza. It was a great day.

  • domesticity,  house stuff!,  I'm an idiot,  Slow News Day

    If you give a mouse a cookie…

    rodeo central aka the living room

    I’ve had this really self-indulgent post in my mind for a while. Well, since the new year when we took down the Christmas tree. It’s basically pictures of my house and why I rearranged everything from top to bottom. Why would somebody spend time rearranging their perfectly functional house into a completely different functioning arrangement just for kicks and then spend an hour styling it just so for photos? AND THEN ANOTHER HOUR BLOGGING ABOUT IT?

    UGH!! I do not know!! I am some kind of freak! This makes me happy and I can’t stop. I just secretly want to be Emily Henderson and this is all I have to work with. Maybe it has something to do with procrastinating and the fact that I can’t sit down and concentrate on work when there are objects of furniture jutting out at angles that offend me and certain first grader’s desks full of cluttery messes distracting me. %$#*%!

    I know I’m ridiculous. What a luxury to spend the day moving furniture around. I’ve spent time at my friends houses recently where they have more than one child and it’s just plain chaos getting food on the table. I realize how good I have it. It is a complete luxury to obsess about one’s furniture and how it looks from the doorway.

    So anyway. The neighbor girl helped me take the Christmas tree down. We were quite a pair lugging that giant thing down the stairs to the trash area in the parking lot, trying not to scrape up the walls with the metal base and not dump stinky, three-week-old Christmas tree water along my neighbor’s front step as we went. It was a huge tree. It took up the entire dumpster. It seemed like such a waste to throw out such a great beauty but it did make the trash smell nice. Maybe it will make the dump smell nice too.

    Then when the tree was gone, there was this great big open spot in my living room and next to it was Bug’s desk covered with papers and crayons and marker pens, books, miscellaneous toys etc… Ugh. That desk drives me crazy. Bug has not inherited my appreciation of minimalism. Not one bit. And now it was just out there in the living room screaming for my attention. I could clean it every day for her (which I have done I must admit in shame) OR I could find some other place in the house that is not so much in plain view. I could hide it.

    Bug's Library/School

    So I did. I moved it into the bedroom with everything else! Now our bedroom is not a sanctuary for sleep. Hmmm…that kinda sucks. It is now the place where we put everything that I do not want to look at first thing when I walk in the front door. Hello stuff!

    It’s just a weird Bren Shui thing. This is my rule that I made that I have to obey for who knows why. Maybe I’m OCD. Everything has to look good from the door. I can hide all kinds of clutter behind the door, in baskets in the bookshelf, in closets, in drawers…even around the corner in the bedroom. It just can’t be there visible from the doorway. The same rule applies at every doorway. So the clutter in the bedroom can’t be the first thing you see when you walk in the bedroom either. Or the bathroom or the kitchen…etc etc. It’s some kind of magnetic pull in my brain or something.

    cozy bedroom

    Thus the bookcase is now standing up on end, creating a little library nook for Bug. How nice that Ikea bookcases can go any which way. It’s like a puzzle.

    hiding her mess

    Clutter hidden. Success!

    Dorm Couch

    Then I moved the futon out of the bedroom into the living room because we always move it out there anyway when guests come over to stay and it weighs about a thousand pounds so that makes more sense. It looks kind of sloppy and college dorm-ish as a makeshift couch but the neighbors like it. Now they have somewhere else to sit besides my awkward yellow chairs.

    my office

    Then there was a weird awkward place in the bedroom where the futon used to be so I stole Bug’s shoe bookcase from the closet (she’s grown out of most her shoes and doesn’t need such a sophisticated way to store them anymore) and now I have a little bedside library.

    chillin' in the library

    It will probably last a month before I change it again. But it is kind of nice to have a place to put my massive collection of books I plan on reading. I used to just stack them by the bed and use them as a makeshift nightstand but that was not very functional either.

    happy kitchen

    And then since I was movin’ and improvin’ everything else in the house I decided to repot my poor baby banana tree and give it a bigger pot.

    adjusting

    This poor plant. I don’t know what’s wrong with it. (It’s the one on the right) The fiddle leaf fig is doing great. It’s put out six leaves since I got it and every time it puts one out I want to throw a party. I threw away the instructions for the banana plant and I think it doesn’t like its soil. I think I need to get it sand or something…I don’t know, I need to look it up.

    I hate it when plants require something besides normal potting soil because when you go to the nursery they always want to sell you potting soil and when you ask for something else they look at you like you are just landed from Mars. At least that’s been my experience. I know there are other plant lovers out there. Surely these big box garden departments have dealt with people asking for specific soils before, right? I don’t know. I just get discouraged and plant everything in potting soil and hope that my love and singing can take care of the rest. Sadly, I think the banana plant does not like my singing. It’s been in that dirt for a week and it still looks depressed. (Also? The dirt faintly stinks and it’s making it hard to cook.)

    I just realized that my neurotic worrying about plants AND my habit of rearranging furniture for hours on end has solidly put me into a category of someone who has too much time on their hands.

    Sigh. Maybe there is somebody out there like me…

    I love my green things

    Does this little corner of greenery make you happy? Will you be my best friend?

    somebody needs to do the dishes

    Whatever. At least I have my priorities straight and leave the dishes for later.

    bake station

    Oh! What’s this over here? You want to see my little Bake Station? Yes, I have moved the heavy KitchenAid mixer out of the cupboard and now it is living permanently on the counter. Why? Because it’s cold in my house and I have to bake every day to warm it up. Please come over and eat scones so that I don’t gain fifty pounds from all the butter. We can talk about soil. It’ll be great. Or maybe we’ll have a party for the baby fig leaf and bake a tiny cake in it’s honor.

    'sup

    And that is all. I am embarrassed of this post. I’m not going to write anything like this again for five months. I will write about important things like blueberry pancake mornings and Narnia parties and what is that thing hanging below my air conditioner/heater unit?